Vol. 72/No. 16      April 21, 2008

Anticommunist and liberal activists have turned the 21-country torch relay into a platform to attack China for its human rights record, environmental policies, and political system. “The Chinese government hopes to use Beijing 2008 to gain recognition and acceptance as a legitimate world power, on the same footing as other democratic countries that have hosted the Games,” protests the website of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT), one of the main groups involved.

Demonstrators briefly interrupted the lighting ceremony in Athens. In Paris, the actions drew groups like Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, as well as an underground antigovernment Chinese political party and Taiwanese nationalists. Local government officials hung a banner outside city hall reading, “Paris defends human rights everywhere in the world.”

“If the Chinese government wants acceptance from the international community, it must immediately stop its baseless attacks on the Dalai Lama and start working toward a meaningful solution to the Tibetan issue,” said Conall Hon, 26, a member of SFT in the United Kingdom, in an April 5 press release.

While taking their distance from the boycott call, most imperialist powers have lined up behind the “Free Tibet” campaign and the Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibet’s ousted feudal aristocracy. A March 29 meeting of European Union foreign ministers called for a dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama but played down any suggestions of a boycott. U.S. president George Bush called Chinese president Hu Jintao to urge him to negotiate with the Dalai Lama. France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy suggested he may boycott the opening ceremony.

The Chinese bureaucracy’s anti-working-class policies—including brutal repression of the religion, language, and cultural rights of oppressed nationalities like Tibetans—have given the imperialist powers a handle in their long-term campaign to isolate the workers state. At the same time, China is strategically and economically important to the imperialist powers, as they try to maneuver with the ruling bureaucracy for political stability and greater trade and investment.

Protests broke out in Tibet and other parts of China in March. Buddhist monks were arrested during an attempted rally marking the 49th anniversary of a landlord-inspired uprising against the Chinese Revolution. The protests spread and included rioting that targeted Han Chinese who have migrated to the region.

Tibet, historically separate from China but ruled for centuries by Chinese emperors, had a feudal system led by a religious hierarchy headed by the Dalai Lama. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army entered Tibet in 1950 after the triumph of the Chinese Revolution. The oppressive property relations in Tibet increasingly came into conflict with the Chinese workers state. In 1959, imperialist powers backed a revolt by landlords trying to reassert their control. The defeat of this uprising was a setback for imperialism.

Since that time imperialist powers and liberal hangers-on, including a slew of celebrities, have used the “Free Tibet” campaign as a wedge against China. The recent spate of protests—which went beyond Tibet and included some participation from social layers other than Buddhist monks—have been the largest in 20 years.

In the last ten years the Chinese government has invested billions of dollars to develop infrastructure in Tibet, including building roads and a railway. As in other rural areas, the Chinese leadership is using capitalist methods to spur foreign investment and development. The accompanying social inequalities are creating a powder keg not only among Tibetans, who face national oppression, but amongst Chinese toilers as a whole.  
 
 
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